This is the twelfth and final article breaking down the greatest players at all positions and ranking them overall. This week we finally reach the Top 10. In order to be on the overall list, a player had to be ranked at a position, so that means the players who were honorable mentions or the will/may be sections didn’t make the cut. Keep in mind; active players or players confirmed/highly suspected of PED use were not eligible to be ranked at their respective positions, so they will not appear on this list.

Over the last two weeks, we looked at numbers 50-26 and 25-11 so we finally get to the Top 10 Players ever in baseball history. These are the best players the game’s ever seen and when you are asked who the greatest players ever were; these 10 will be in your list almost every single time (Mickey Mantle at number 11 could be argued in the top 10). My goal for this top 10 is to have each player within 1 spot of where most people would rank them. Any player in this Top 10 has a legitimate argument to be placed anywhere from spots 2-10 (#1 is a lock) and it wasn’t easy determining the final ranking. Some decisions were tough – Gehrig versus Williams or Dimaggio versus Musial. Without further adieu and after 12 long weeks of reading articles, here’s my Top 10:

Honus is generally considered the greatest shortstop the game’s ever seen and generally considered one of its best hitters. Wagner was the original five-tool player (hit for power, hit for average, great defender, great speed and a great arm). The reason I have Honus so “low” is mainly because of the era he played in – his entire career was pre-1920 and the game just wasn’t the same as it was after 1920. It’s not Honus’ fault but when the players are as close as they are in this list, something as small as the era played in can have an effect.

Rogers is considered amongst the greatest hitters the game’s ever seen. He hit for average and for power, his OBP was fantastic and is the only player to get a NL Batting Triple Crown twice (one of which was a MLB Batting Triple Crown). He owns the record for highest batting average in a season (.424). Rogers is also the only player in history to hit over 40 HRs and bat over .400 in the same season. Hornsby owns the record for leading the National League in Slugging % (9 times). Keep in mind; Rogers did all this as a second baseman, which back then was a “defensive position”. Rogers is in the discussion for greatest right-handed hitter in history.

Hank was one of the most consistent hitters in history. He hit over 30 HRs in a season 15 times, had over 150 hits in 17 seasons, and either owns the record or is in the top 5 for the following categories; RBIs, extra base hits, total bases, HRs, hits and runs scored. However, you have to keep in mind he is also third all-time in games played and second all-time for at-bats.

Stan “The Man” is easily one of the best hitters the game’s ever seen. Most hitters, you see a difference between hitting at home or hitting on the road, hitting during the day and hitting at night; this is not the case for Stan. He had 1815 hits at home and 1815 hits on the road, batted .336 at home and .326 on the road, .340 in day games and .320 in night games. Stan also only struck out more than 40 times in a season three times, two of which were in his final seasons and only struck out more than he walked once in his final season. Musial finished in the top-10 for MVP voting 14 times, with 6 top-5s and was a 3-time winner. Similar to Aaron, Musial played at a consistent level for a very long time.

“Joltin’ Joe” is the 3rd highest ranked center fielder in the Top 10 (does that tell you how deep that position is?). Joe is another of a long line of players that missed time because of military service and as with the others; you have to ask yourself “What If?” What if Joe didn’t miss that time? What if Joe wasn’t a right-handed hitter in the cavernous Yankee Stadium “where home runs went to die”? To better illustrate the affect Yankee Stadium had on him, here’s some interesting stats; he hit 148 home runs in 3,360 at-bats at home and hit 213 home runs in 3,461 at-bats on the road, his Slugging Percentage at home was .546 and on the road it was .610, his on-base percentage at home was .391 and on the road it was .405, he drove in 720 RBI at home and 817 on the road. Joe had a hit streak of 61 games in the minors and the 56 game hit streak in MLB. But did you know that when the 56-game streak ended, Joe then hit safely in 16 straight meaning he hit safely in 72 of 73 games? I haven’t even touched on his defense in CF which is considered amongst the best ever. Joe was a ballplayer’s ballplayer and a consummate professional. The reason I put Dimaggio ahead of Musial – if you look at their numbers, they are pretty much equal with Musial having a slight edge offensively with Dimaggio having the edge defensively. The kicker for me is if you were to ask people who saw both in their primes and ask which player was better (keep in mind, you need to ask a non-Yankee/non-Cardinal fan), every single one would say Joe D.

Cobb was a tremendous five-tool player (don’t let his low HR totals confuse you – he once hit 6 HRs in 9 at-bats to prove he could and being a leadoff hitter, he wasn’t supposed to hit HRs). Many historians have mixed feelings about Cobb. Some believe he was a dirty player while others believe he did whatever was needed to win. There’s a fine line between being competitive and being dirty and Cobb constantly bounced between the two. Did you know that for the first Hall of Fame class, the player that got the highest percentage of votes wasn’t Ruth or Wagner or Mathewson or Johnson? That’s right, it was Cobb. While Ruth’s legend has grown as the years have passed, Cobb’s seems to have declined.

Mays is arguably the greatest five-tool player in history. He hit for a decent average, great power, had great speed, an awesome arm and is considered one of the best defensive players in the game. While Mays surpasses the three players ahead of him in this list in some categories, in the main categories of batting average, OBP and Slugging % he falls short (behind in OBP by at least .060, behind in batting average by .040 and behind in Slugging % by at least .070). Don’t get me wrong, Willie is one of the greatest overall players in history and it was tough to put him as low as 4th. Mays played at an extremely high level for his entire career. Where he sets himself apart from other players was his defense. Playing center field requires a combination of speed, glove work and arm strength; this is where Willie’s real talent was at.

It was a tough decision deciding if Lou should be second or third. Who knows how much time he missed due to ALS? Would he have ended up with the most RBIs in history (he was far ahead of the pace Aaron was on when he set the record)? Would he have finished with 600 or 700 HRs? How many more games would The Streak have lasted? I firmly believe if Gehrig had remained healthy, the only discussion we would have would be who was better, Ruth or Gehrig; no one else would even be in the discussion. However, when comparing Lou’s career to that of Ted Williams (you’ll see below their stats are almost identical), the final decision came down to when did each of them miss their games? Lou’s missed time would have been years at the end of his career (possible decline years) while Ted’s missed years were in the middle of his prime so in a what-if type scenario, prime years trump decline years, though it was very close.

As with most players on this list, Teddy Ballgame missed several seasons to military service and that has to be taken into account. In my opinion, he was the best pure hitter in baseball history. Also, I believe he was robbed of at least two MVPs (lost one to Joe Gordon when Williams hit for the Triple Crown and one to DiMaggio even though he hit .406 for the season; that was DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak season). Some people will point to the drastic difference in Williams’ home and road splits, but that doesn’t bother me. Ted Williams was the ultimate hitter; he could hit for average and power and got on base regularly. Teddy has the highest career batting average for anyone with over 500 HRs and was the last man to bat for over .400 for the season.

Is there anything I can say here about the Babe that you haven’t already heard a million times? When Ruth retired, he owned over 60 batting records that alone says it all. I won’t go into detail about Ruth the hitter; I will however, talk about the other aspect of the Babe’s career that in my opinion makes him the greatest baseball player ever. Ruth could have been good enough to be a Hall of Fame pitcher had he remained a pitcher instead of becoming an everyday right fielder. In 10 seasons of being a pitcher (5 of which he appeared in 4 games or less as a pitcher), Ruth amassed a record of 94-46, a 2.28 ERA, 107 complete games out of 148 games started, an ERA+ of 122, a WHIP of 1.159 and set several pitching records (consecutive scoreless innings for example). Those pitching numbers compare favorably with some of the great pitchers in history. So, while most players in history were great hitters, great defenders, great base runners or great pitchers; Ruth was above average or elite in all those categories and in my opinion earns him the title of Greatest Baseball Player ever.

So, what do you think? Do you have a problem with the order? Let me know if you think someone is too low or too high and please give an explanation of why.

You’ve seen who I thought were the best players at each position and now you’ve seen where I thought each of those 63 positional players fit into baseball’s history. Thanks to all my loyal readers who have stuck with me over these 3 months and 12 articles. A special thanks to those readers who have either sent me emails with comments or left comments in the articles themselves.

Rich was a writer for Informative Sports who mainly covers the historical and analytical aspects of MLB. He's a fan of all sports, but really loves the MLB due to it's great history and statistical nature. Rich can also be found the Bleacher Report (http://bleacherreport.com/users/472690-rich-stowe), on Twitter (@rstowe75) and on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rich-Stowe-Sports-Writer/151927961499435)

I know that I maybe bias here in stating that I think and say that the greatest overall baseball player was and is Rickey Henderson, who not only still holds 3 or 4 all-time career records, Such as Walks, Stolen Bases and Runs Scored. Rickey prayed as he walked to the batters box, each and every time, then he did his job and proceeded to get on base anyway that he possible could, either by getting Walked, Hit by a pitch, or by getting a hit. But then when on base he got into the pitcher's head with his threat of Stealing Bases, so that each and every pitcher was forced to become 50/50 in concentration between Rickey and the batter.
Rickey also holds the record for breaking up double plays by using his body to some how get in the way and or stop the 2nd out from being made. And whenever, Rickey was on base with his .401 OBP, he did whatever he could to get to home plate. I mean, Rickey even gave his own body up to get on base by leaning into inside fastball pitches and much, much more.